Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, by David Livingstone

Chapter 5.

Start in June, 1852, on the last and longest Journey from Cape Town — Companions — Wagon-traveling —
Physical Divisions of Africa — The Eastern, Central, and Western Zones — The Kalahari Desert — Its Vegetation —
Increasing Value of the Interior for Colonization — Our Route — Dutch Boers — Their Habits — Sterile Appearance of the
District — Failure of Grass — Succeeded by other Plants — Vines — Animals — The Boers as Farmers — Migration of
Springbucks — Wariness of Animals — The Orange River — Territory of the Griquas and Bechuanas — The Griquas — The Chief
Waterboer — His wise and energetic Government — His Fidelity — Ill-considered Measures of the Colonial Government in
regard to Supplies of Gunpowder — Success of the Missionaries among the Griquas and Bechuanas — Manifest Improvement of
the native Character — Dress of the Natives — A full-dress Costume — A Native’s Description of the Natives — Articles
of Commerce in the Country of the Bechuanas — Their Unwillingness to learn, and Readiness to criticise.

Having sent my family home to England, I started in the beginning of June, 1852, on my last journey from Cape Town.
This journey extended from the southern extremity of the continent to St. Paul de Loando, the capital of Angola, on the
west coast, and thence across South Central Africa in an oblique direction to Kilimane (Quilimane) in Eastern Africa. I
proceeded in the usual conveyance of the country, the heavy, lumbering Cape wagon drawn by ten oxen, and was
accompanied by two Christian Bechuanas from Kuruman — than whom I never saw better servants any where — by two Bakwain
men, and two young girls, who, having come as nurses with our children to the Cape, were returning to their home at
Kolobeng. Wagon-traveling in Africa has been so often described that I need say no more than that it is a prolonged
system of picnicking, excellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not over-fastidious about trifles, and
who delight in being in the open air.

Our route to the north lay near the centre of the cone-shaped mass of land which constitutes the promontory of the
Cape. If we suppose this cone to be divided into three zones or longitudinal bands, we find each presenting distinct
peculiarities of climate, physical appearance and population. These are more marked beyond than within the colony. At
some points one district seems to be continued in and to merge into the other, but the general dissimilarity warrants
the division, as an aid to memory. The eastern zone is often furnished with mountains, well wooded with evergreen
succulent trees, on which neither fire nor droughts can have the smallest effect (‘Strelitzia’, ‘Zamia horrida’,
‘Portulacaria afra’, ‘Schotia speciosa’, ‘Euphorbias’, and ‘Aloes arborescens’); and its seaboard gorges are clad with
gigantic timber. It is also comparatively well watered with streams and flowing rivers. The annual supply of rain is
considerable, and the inhabitants (Caffres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made; they are shrewd, energetic, and
brave; altogether they merit the character given them by military authorities, of being “magnificent savages”. Their
splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank
among the foremost Europeans.

The next division, that which embraces the centre of the continent, can scarcely be called hilly, for what hills
there are are very low. It consists for the most part of extensive, slightly undulating plains. There are no lofty
mountains, but few springs, and still fewer flowing streams. Rain is far from abundant, and droughts may be expected
every few years. Without artificial irrigation no European grain can be raised, and the inhabitants (Bechuanas), though
evidently of the same stock, originally, with those already mentioned, and closely resembling them in being an
agricultural as well as a pastoral people, are a comparatively timid race, and inferior to the Caffres in physical
development.

The western division is still more level than the middle one, being rugged only near the coast. It includes the
great plain called the Kalahari Desert, which is remarkable for little water and very considerable vegetation.

The reason, probably, why so little rain falls on this extensive plain is that the prevailing winds of most of the
interior country are easterly, with a little southing. The moisture taken up by the atmosphere from the Indian Ocean is
deposited on the eastern hilly slope; and when the moving mass of air reaches its greatest elevation, it is then on the
verge of the great valley, or, as in the case of the Kalahari, the great heated inland plains; there, meeting with the
rarefied air of that hot, dry surface, the ascending heat gives it greater capacity for retaining all its remaining
humidity, and few showers can be given to the middle and western lands in consequence of the increased hygrometric
power.

This is the same phenomenon, on a gigantic scale, as that which takes place on Table Mountain, at the Cape, in what
is called the spreading of the “table-cloth”. The southeast wind causes a mass of air, equal to the diameter of the
mountain, suddenly to ascend at least three thousand feet; the dilatation produced by altitude, with its attendant
cold, causes the immediate formation of a cloud on the summit; the water in the atmosphere becomes visible; successive
masses of gliding-up and passing-over air cause the continual formation of clouds, but the top of the vapory mass, or
“table-cloth”, is level, and seemingly motionless; on the lee side, however, the thick volumes of vapor curl over and
descend, but when they reach the point below, where greater density and higher temperature impart enlarged capacity for
carrying water, they entirely disappear.

Now if, instead of a hollow on the lee side of Table Mountain, we had an elevated heated plain, the clouds which
curl over that side, and disappear as they do at present when a “southeaster” is blowing, might deposit some moisture
on the windward ascent and top; but the heat would then impart the increased capacity the air now receives at the lower
level in its descent to leeward, and, instead of an extended country with a flora of the ‘Disa grandiflora’,
‘gladiolus’, ‘rushes’, and ‘lichens’, which now appear on Table Mountain, we should have only the hardy vegetation of
the Kalahari.

Why there should be so much vegetation on the Kalahari may be explained by the geological formation of the country.
There is a rim or fringe of ancient rocks round a great central valley, which, dipping inward, form a basin, the bottom
of which is composed of the oldest silurian rocks. This basin has been burst through and filled up in many parts by
eruptive traps and breccias, which often bear in their substances angular fragments of the more ancient rocks, as shown
in the fossils they contain. Now, though large areas have been so dislocated that but little trace of the original
valley formation appears, it is highly probable that the basin shape prevails over large tracts of the country; and as
the strata on the slopes, where most of the rain falls, dip in toward the centre, they probably guide water beneath the
plains but ill supplied with moisture from the clouds. The phenomenon of stagnant fountains becoming by a new and
deeper outlet never-failing streams may be confirmatory of the view that water is conveyed from the sides of the
country into the bottom of the central valley; and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the wonderful river
system in the north, which, if native information be correct, causes a considerable increase of water in the springs
called Matlomagan-yana (the Links), extends its fertilizing influence beneath the plains of the Kalahari.

The peculiar formation of the country may explain why there is such a difference in the vegetation between the 20th
and 30th parallels of latitude in South Africa and the same latitudes in Central Australia. The want of vegetation is
as true of some parts too in the centre of South America as of Australia; and the cause of the difference holds out a
probability for the success of artesian wells in extensive tracts of Africa now unpeopled solely on account of the want
of surface water. We may be allowed to speculate a little at least on the fact of much greater vegetation, which, from
whatever source it comes, presents for South Africa prospects of future greatness which we can not hope for in Central
Australia. As the interior districts of the Cape Colony are daily becoming of higher value, offering to honest industry
a fair remuneration for capital, and having a climate unequaled in salubrity for consumptive patients, I should
unhesitatingly recommend any farmer at all afraid of that complaint in his family to try this colony. With the means of
education already possessed, and the onward and upward movement of the Cape population, he need entertain no
apprehensions of his family sinking into barbarism.

The route we at this time followed ran along the middle, or skirted the western zone before alluded to, until we
reached the latitude of Lake Ngami, where a totally different country begins. While in the colony, we passed through
districts inhabited by the descendants of Dutch and French refugees who had fled from religious persecution. Those
living near the capital differ but little from the middle classes in English counties, and are distinguished by public
spirit and general intelligence; while those situated far from the centres of civilization are less informed, but are a
body of frugal, industrious, and hospitable peasantry. A most efficient system of public instruction was established in
the time of Governor Sir George Napier, on a plan drawn up in a great measure by that accomplished philosopher, Sir
John Herschel. The system had to contend with less sectarian rancor than elsewhere; indeed, until quite recently, that
spirit, except in a mild form, was unknown.

The population here described ought not to be confounded with some Boers who fled from British rule on account of
the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and perhaps never would have been so had not every now and then some Rip
Van Winkle started forth at the Cape to justify in the public prints the deeds of blood and slave-hunting in the far
interior. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the whole race is confounded and held in low estimation by those who
do not know the real composition of the Cape community.

Population among the Boers increases rapidly; they marry soon, are seldom sterile, and continue to have children
late. I once met a worthy matron whose husband thought it right to imitate the conduct of Abraham while Sarah was
barren; she evidently agreed in the propriety of the measure, for she was pleased to hear the children by a mother of
what has been thought an inferior race address her as their mother. Orphans are never allowed to remain long destitute;
and instances are frequent in which a tender-hearted farmer has adopted a fatherless child, and when it came of age
portioned it as his own.

Two centuries of the South African climate have not had much effect upon the physical condition of the Boers. They
are a shade darker, or rather ruddier, than Europeans, and are never cadaverous-looking, as descendants of Europeans
are said to be elsewhere. There is a tendency to the development of steatopyga, so characteristic of Arabs and other
African tribes; and it is probable that the interior Boers in another century will become in color what the learned
imagine our progenitors, Adam and Eve, to have been.

The parts of the colony through which we passed were of sterile aspect; and, as the present winter had been preceded
by a severe drought, many farmers had lost two thirds of their stock. The landscape was uninviting; the hills,
destitute of trees, were of a dark brown color, and the scanty vegetation on the plains made me feel that they deserved
the name of Desert more than the Kalahari. When first taken possession of, these parts are said to have been covered
with a coating of grass, but that has disappeared with the antelopes which fed upon it, and a crop of mesembryanthemums
and crassulas occupies its place. It is curious to observe how, in nature, organizations the most dissimilar are
mutually dependent on each other for their perpetuation. Here the original grasses were dependent for dissemination on
the grass-feeding animals, which scattered the seeds. When, by the death of the antelopes, no fresh sowing was made,
the African droughts proved too much for this form of vegetation. But even this contingency was foreseen by the
Omniscient One; for, as we may now observe in the Kalahari Desert, another family of plants, the mesembryanthemums,
stood ready to neutralize the aridity which must otherwise have followed. This family of plants possesses seed-vessels
which remain firmly shut on their contents while the soil is hot and dry, and thus preserve the vegetative power intact
during the highest heat of the torrid sun; but when rain falls, the seed-vessel opens and sheds its contents just when
there is the greatest probability of their vegetating. In other plants heat and drought cause the seed-vessels to burst
and shed their charge.

One of this family is edible (‘Mesembryanthemum edule’); another possesses a tuberous root, which may be eaten raw;
and all are furnished with thick, fleshy leaves, having pores capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very
dry atmosphere and soil, so that, if a leaf is broken during a period of the greatest drought, it shows abundant
circulating sap. The plants of this family are found much farther north, but the great abundance of the grasses
prevents them from making any show. There, however, they stand ready to fill up any gap which may occur in the present
prevailing vegetation; and should the grasses disappear, animal life would not necessarily be destroyed, because a
reserve supply, equivalent to a fresh act of creative power, has been provided.

One of this family, ‘M. turbiniforme’, is so colored as to blend in well with the hue of the soil and stones around
it; and a ‘gryllus’ of the same color feeds on it. In the case of the insect, the peculiar color is given as
compensation for the deficiency of the powers of motion to enable it to elude the notice of birds. The continuation of
the species is here the end in view. In the case of the plant the same device is adopted for a sort of double end,
viz., perpetuation of the plant by hiding it from animals, with the view that ultimately its extensive appearance will
sustain that race.

As this new vegetation is better adapted for sheep and goats in a dry country than grass, the Boers supplant the
latter by imitating the process by which graminivorous antelopes have so abundantly disseminated the seed of grasses. A
few wagon-loads of mesembryanthemum plants, in seed, are brought to a farm covered with a scanty crop of coarse grass,
and placed on a spot to which the sheep have access in the evenings. As they eat a little every night, the seeds are
dropped over the grazing grounds in this simple way, with a regularity which could not be matched except at the cost of
an immense amount of labor. The place becomes in the course of a few years a sheep-farm, as these animals thrive on
such herbage. As already mentioned, some plants of this family are furnished with an additional contrivance for
withstanding droughts, viz., oblong tubers, which, buried deep enough beneath the soil for complete protection from the
scorching sun, serve as reservoirs of sap and nutriment during those rainless periods which recur perpetually in even
the most favored spots of Africa. I have adverted to this peculiarity as often seen in the vegetation of the Desert;
and, though rather out of place, it may be well — while noticing a clever imitation of one process in nature by the
Cape farmers — to suggest another for their consideration. The country beyond south lat. 18° abounds in three varieties
of grape-bearing vines, and one of these is furnished with oblong tubers every three or four inches along the
horizontal root. They resemble closely those of the asparagus. This increase of power to withstand the effects of
climate might prove of value in the more arid parts of the Cape colony, grapes being well known to be an excellent
restorative in the debility produced by heat: by ingrafting, or by some of those curious manipulations which we read of
in books on gardening, a variety might be secured better adapted to the country than the foreign vines at present
cultivated. The Americans find that some of their native vines yield wines superior to those made from the very best
imported vines from France and Portugal. What a boon a vine of the sort contemplated would have been to a Rhenish
missionary I met at a part in the west of the colony called Ebenezer, whose children had never seen flowers, though old
enough to talk about them!

The slow pace at which we wound our way through the colony made almost any subject interesting. The attention is
attracted to the names of different places, because they indicate the former existence of buffaloes, elands, and
elephants, which are now to be found only hundreds of miles beyond. A few blesbucks (‘Antilope pygarga’), gnus,
bluebucks (‘A. cerulea’), steinbucks, and the ostrich (‘Struthio camelus’), continue, like the Bushmen, to maintain a
precarious existence when all the rest are gone. The elephant, the most sagacious, flees the sound of fire-arms first;
the gnu and ostrich, the most wary and the most stupid, last. The first emigrants found the Hottentots in possession of
prodigious herds of fine cattle, but no horses, asses, or camels. The original cattle, which may still be seen in some
parts of the frontier, must have been brought south from the north-northeast, for from this point the natives
universally ascribe their original migration. They brought cattle, sheep, goats, and dogs; why not the horse, the
delight of savage hordes? Horses thrive well in the Cape Colony when imported. Naturalists point out certain mountain
ranges as limiting the habitat of certain classes of animals; but there is no Cordillera in Africa to answer that
purpose, there being no visible barrier between the northeastern Arabs and the Hottentot tribes to prevent the
different hordes, as they felt their way southward, from indulging their taste for the possession of this noble
animal.

I am here led to notice an invisible barrier, more insurmountable than mountain ranges, but which is not opposed to
the southern progress of cattle, goats, and sheep. The tsetse would prove a barrier only until its well-defined habitat
was known, but the disease passing under the term of horse-sickness (peripneumonia) exists in such virulence over
nearly seven degrees of latitude that no precaution would be sufficient to save these animals. The horse is so liable
to this disease, that only by great care in stabling can he be kept any where between 20° and 27° S. during the time
between December and April. The winter, beginning in the latter month, is the only period in which Englishmen can hunt
on horseback, and they are in danger of losing all their studs some months before December. To this disease the horse
is especially exposed, and it is almost always fatal. One attack, however, seems to secure immunity from a second.
Cattle, too, are subject to it, but only at intervals of a few, sometimes many years; but it never makes a clean sweep
of the whole cattle of a village, as it would do of a troop of fifty horses. This barrier, then, seems to explain the
absence of the horse among the Hottentots, though it is not opposed to the southern migration of cattle, sheep, and
goats.

When the flesh of animals that have died of this disease is eaten, it causes a malignant carbuncle, which, when it
appears over any important organ, proves rapidly fatal. It is more especially dangerous over the pit of the stomach.
The effects of the poison have been experienced by missionaries who had eaten properly cooked food, the flesh of sheep
really but not visibly affected by the disease. The virus in the flesh of the animal is destroyed neither by boiling
nor roasting. This fact, of which we have had innumerable examples, shows the superiority of experiments on a large
scale to those of acute and able physiologists and chemists in the laboratory, for a well known physician of Paris,
after careful investigation, considered that the virus in such cases was completely neutralized by boiling.

This disease attacks wild animals too. During our residence at Chonuan great numbers of tolos, or koodoos, were
attracted to the gardens of the Bakwains, abandoned at the usual period of harvest because there was no prospect of the
corn (‘Holcus sorghum’) bearing that year. The koodoo is remarkably fond of the green stalks of this kind of millet.
Free feeding produced that state of fatness favorable for the development of this disease, and no fewer than
twenty-five died on the hill opposite our house. Great numbers of gnus and zebras perished from the same cause, but the
mortality produced no sensible diminution in the numbers of the game, any more than the deaths of many of the Bakwains
who persisted, in spite of every remonstrance, in eating the dead meat, caused any sensible decrease in the strength of
the tribe.

The farms of the Boers consist generally of a small patch of cultivated land in the midst of some miles of
pasturage. They are thus less an agricultural than a pastoral people. Each farm must have its fountain; and where no
such supply of water exists, the government lands are unsalable. An acre in England is thus generally more valuable
than a square mile in Africa. But the country is prosperous, and capable of great improvement. The industry of the
Boers augurs well for the future formation of dams and tanks, and for the greater fruitfulness that would certainly
follow.

As cattle and sheep farmers the colonists are very successful. Larger and larger quantities of wool are produced
annually, and the value of colonial farms increases year by year. But the system requires that with the increase of the
population there should be an extension of territory. Wide as the country is, and thinly inhabited, the farmers feel it
to be too limited, and they are gradually spreading to the north. This movement proves prejudicial to the country
behind, for labor, which would be directed to the improvement of the colony, is withdrawn and expended in a mode of
life little adapted to the exercise of industrial habits. That, however, does not much concern the rest of mankind. Nor
does it seem much of an evil for men who cultivate the soil to claim a right to appropriate lands for tillage which
other men only hunt over, provided some compensation for the loss of sustenance be awarded. The original idea of a
title seems to have been that “subduing” or cultivating gave that right. But this rather Chartist principle must be
received with limitations, for its recognition in England would lead to the seizure of all our broad ancestral acres by
those who are willing to cultivate them. And, in the case under consideration, the encroachments lead at once to less
land being put under the plow than is subjected to the native hoe, for it is a fact that the Basutos and Zulus, or
Caffres of Natal, cultivate largely, and undersell our farmers wherever they have a fair field and no favor.

Before we came to the Orange River we saw the last portion of a migration of springbucks (‘Gazella euchore’, or
tsepe). They come from the great Kalahari Desert, and, when first seen after crossing the colonial boundary, are said
often to exceed forty thousand in number. I can not give an estimate of their numbers, for they appear spread over a
vast expanse of country, and make a quivering motion as they feed, and move, and toss their graceful horns. They feed
chiefly on grass; and as they come from the north about the time when the grass most abounds, it can not be want of
food that prompts the movement. Nor is it want of water, for this antelope is one of the most abstemious in that
respect. Their nature prompts them to seek as their favorite haunts level plains with short grass, where they may be
able to watch the approach of an enemy. The Bakalahari take advantage of this feeling, and burn off large patches of
grass, not only to attract the game by the new crop when it comes up, but also to form bare spots for the springbuck to
range over.

It is not the springbuck alone that manifests this feeling. When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, they
are much more ready to be startled; their sense of danger is increased by the increased power of concealment afforded
to an enemy by such cover, and they will often start off in terror at the ill-defined outlines of each other. The
springbuck, possessing this feeling in an intense degree, and being eminently gregarious, becomes uneasy as the grass
of the Kalahari becomes tall. The vegetation being more sparse in the more arid south, naturally induces the different
herds to turn in that direction. As they advance and increase in numbers, the pasturage becomes more scarce; it is
still more so the further they go, until they are at last obliged, in order to obtain the means of subsistence, to
cross the Orange River, and become the pest of the sheep-farmer in a country which contains scarcely any of their
favorite grassy food. If they light on a field of wheat in their way, an army of locusts could not make a cleaner sweep
of the whole than they will do. It is questionable whether they ever return, as they have never been seen as a
returning body. Many perish from want of food, the country to which they have migrated being unable to support them;
the rest become scattered over the colony; and in such a wide country there is no lack of room for all. It is probable
that, notwithstanding the continued destruction by fire-arms, they will continue long to hold their place.

On crossing the Orange River we come into independent territory inhabited by Griquas and Bechuanas. By Griquas is
meant any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. Those in question were of Dutch extraction, through association
with Hottentot and Bushwomen. Half-castes of the first generation consider themselves superior to those of the second,
and all possess in some degree the characteristics of both parents. They were governed for many years by an elected
chief, named Waterboer, who, by treaty, received a small sum per annum from the colonial government for the support of
schools in his country, and proved a most efficient guard of our northwest boundary. Cattle-stealing was totally
unknown during the whole period of this able chief’s reign; and he actually drove back, single-handed, a formidable
force of marauding Mantatees that threatened to invade the colony.15 But for
that brave Christian man, Waterboer, there is every human probability that the northwest would have given the colonists
as much trouble as the eastern frontier; for large numbers among the original Griquas had as little scruple about
robbing farmers of cattle as the Caffres are reputed to have. On the election of Waterboer to the chieftainship, he
distinctly declared THAT NO MARAUDING SHOULD BE ALLOWED. As the government of none of these tribes is despotic, some of
his principal men, in spite of this declaration, plundered some villages of Corannas living to the south of the Orange
River. He immediately seized six of the ringleaders, and, though the step put his own position in jeopardy, he summoned
his council, tried, condemned, and publicly executed the whole six. This produced an insurrection, and the insurgents
twice attacked his capital, Griqua Town, with the intention of deposing him; but he bravely defeated both attempts, and
from that day forth, during his long reign of thirty years, not a single plundering expedition ever left his territory.
Having witnessed the deleterious effects of the introduction of ardent spirits among his people, he, with
characteristic energy, decreed that any Boer or Griqua bringing brandy into the country should have his property in
ardent spirits confiscated and poured out on the ground. The Griqua chiefs living farther east were unable to carry
this law into effect as he did, hence the greater facility with which Boers in that direction got the Griquas to part
with their farms.

15 For an account of this, see Moffat’s “Scenes and Labors in
South Africa”.

Ten years after he was firmly established in power he entered into a treaty with the colonial government, and during
the twenty years which followed not a single charge was ever brought against either him or his people; on the contrary,
his faithful adherence to the stipulated provisions elicited numerous expressions of approbation from successive
governments. A late governor, however, of whom it is impossible to speak without respect, in a paroxysm of generalship
which might have been good, had it not been totally inappropriate to the case, set about conciliating a band of
rebellious British subjects (Boers), who murdered the Honorable Captain Murray, by proclaiming their independence while
still in open rebellion, and not only abrogated the treaty with the Griquas, but engaged to stop the long-accustomed
supplies of gunpowder for the defense of the frontier, and even to prevent them from purchasing it for their own
defense by lawful trade.

If it had been necessary to prevent supplies of ammunition from finding their way into the country, as it probably
was, one might imagine that the exception should not have been made in favor of either Boers or Caffres, our
openly-avowed enemies; but, nevertheless, the exception was made, and is still continued in favor of the Boers, while
the Bechuanas and Griquas, our constant friends, are debarred from obtaining a single ounce for either defense or
trade; indeed, such was the state of ignorance as to the relation of the border tribes with the English, even at Cape
Town, that the magistrates, though willing to aid my researches, were sorely afraid to allow me to purchase more than
ten pounds of gunpowder, lest the Bechuanas should take it from me by force. As it turned out, I actually left more
than that quantity for upward of two years in an open box in my wagon at Linyanti.

The lamented Sir George Cathcart, apparently unconscious of what he was doing, entered into a treaty with the
Transvaal Boers, in which articles were introduced for the free passage of English traders to the north, and for the
entire prohibition of slavery in the free state. Then passed the “gunpowder ordinance”, by which the Bechuanas, whom
alone the Boers dare attempt to enslave, were rendered quite defenseless. The Boers never attempt to fight with
Caffres, nor to settle in Caffreland. We still continue to observe the treaty. The Boers never did, and never intended
to abide by its provisions; for, immediately on the proclamation of their independence, a slave-hunt was undertaken
against the Bechuanas of Sechele by four hundred Boers, under Mr. Peit Scholz, and the plan was adopted which had been
cherished in their hearts ever since the emancipation of the Hottentots. Thus, from unfortunate ignorance of the
country he had to govern, an able and sagacious governor adopted a policy proper and wise had it been in front of our
enemies, but altogether inappropriate for our friends against whom it has been applied. Such an error could not have
been committed by a man of local knowledge and experience, such as that noble of colonial birth, Sir Andries
Stockenstrom; and such instances of confounding friend and foe, in the innocent belief of thereby promoting colonial
interests, will probably lead the Cape community, the chief part of which by no means feels its interest to lie in the
degradation of the native tribes, to assert the right of choosing their own governors. This, with colonial
representation in the Imperial Parliament, in addition to the local self-government already so liberally conceded,
would undoubtedly secure the perpetual union of the colony to the English crown.

Many hundreds of both Griquas and Bechuanas have become Christians and partially civilized through the teaching of
English missionaries. My first impressions of the progress made were that the accounts of the effects of the Gospel
among them had been too highly colored. I expected a higher degree of Christian simplicity and purity than exists
either among them or among ourselves. I was not anxious for a deeper insight in detecting shams than others, but I
expected character, such as we imagine the primitive disciples had — and was disappointed.16 When, however, I passed on to the true heathen in the countries beyond the sphere of missionary
influence, and could compare the people there with the Christian natives, I came to the conclusion that, if the
question were examined in the most rigidly severe or scientific way, the change effected by the missionary movement
would be considered unquestionably great.

16 The popular notion, however, of the primitive Church is
perhaps not very accurate. Those societies especially which consisted of converted Gentiles — men who had been
accustomed to the vices and immoralities of heathenism — were certainly any thing but pure. In spite of their
conversion, some of them carried the stains and vestiges of their former state with them when they passed from the
temple to the church. If the instructed and civilized Greek did not all at once rise out of his former self, and
understand and realize the high ideal of his new faith, we should be careful, in judging of the work of missionaries
among savage tribes, not to apply to their converts tests and standards of too great severity. If the scoffing Lucian’s
account of the impostor Peregrinus may be believed, we find a church probably planted by the apostles manifesting less
intelligence even than modern missionary churches. Peregrinus, a notoriously wicked man, was elected to the chief place
among them, while Romish priests, backed by the power of France, could not find a place at all in the mission churches
of Tahiti and Madagascar.

We can not fairly compare these poor people with ourselves, who have an atmosphere of Christianity and enlightened
public opinion, the growth of centuries, around us, to influence our deportment; but let any one from the natural and
proper point of view behold the public morality of Griqua Town, Kuruman, Likatlong, and other villages, and remember
what even London was a century ago, and he must confess that the Christian mode of treating aborigines is incomparably
the best.

The Griquas and Bechuanas were in former times clad much like the Caffres, if such a word may be used where there is
scarcely any clothing at all. A bunch of leather strings about eighteen inches long hung from the lady’s waist in
front, and a prepared skin of a sheep or antelope covered the shoulders, leaving the breast and abdomen bare: the men
wore a patch of skin, about the size of the crown of one’s hat, which barely served for the purposes of decency, and a
mantle exactly like that of the women. To assist in protecting the pores of the skin from the influence of the sun by
day and of the cold by night, all smeared themselves with a mixture of fat and ochre; the head was anointed with
pounded blue mica schist mixed with fat; and the fine particles of shining mica, falling on the body and on strings of
beads and brass rings, were considered as highly ornamental, and fit for the most fastidious dandy. Now these same
people come to church in decent though poor clothing, and behave with a decorum certainly superior to what seems to
have been the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in London. Sunday is well observed, and, even in localities where no
missionary lives, religious meetings are regularly held, and children and adults taught to read by the more advanced of
their own fellow-countrymen; and no one is allowed to make a profession of faith by baptism unless he knows how to
read, and understands the nature of the Christian religion.

The Bechuana Mission has been so far successful that, when coming from the interior, we always felt, on reaching
Kuruman, that we had returned to civilized life. But I would not give any one to understand by this that they are model
Christians — we can not claim to be model Christians ourselves — or even in any degree superior to the members of our
country churches. They are more stingy and greedy than the poor at home; but in many respects the two are exactly
alike. On asking an intelligent chief what he thought of them, he replied, “You white men have no idea of how wicked we
are; we know each other better than you; some feign belief to ingratiate themselves with the missionaries; some profess
Christianity because they like the new system, which gives so much more importance to the poor, and desire that the old
system may pass away; and the rest — a pretty large number — profess because they are really true believers.” This
testimony may be considered as very nearly correct.

There is not much prospect of this country ever producing much of the materials of commerce except wool. At present
the chief articles of trade are karosses or mantles — the skins of which they are composed come from the Desert; next
to them, ivory, the quantity of which can not now be great, inasmuch as the means of shooting elephants is sedulously
debarred entrance into the country. A few skins and horns, and some cattle, make up the remainder of the exports.
English goods, sugar, tea, and coffee are the articles received in exchange. All the natives of these parts soon become
remarkably fond of coffee. The acme of respectability among the Bechuanas is the possession of cattle and a wagon. It
is remarkable that, though these latter require frequent repairs, none of the Bechuanas have ever learned to mend them.
Forges and tools have been at their service, and teachers willing to aid them, but, beyond putting together a
camp-stool, no effort has ever been made to acquire a knowledge of the trades. They observe most carefully a missionary
at work until they understand whether a tire is well welded or not, and then pronounce upon its merits with great
emphasis, but there their ambition rests satisfied. It is the same peculiarity among ourselves which leads us in other
matters, such as book-making, to attain the excellence of fault-finding without the wit to indite a page. It was in
vain I tried to indoctrinate the Bechuanas with the idea that criticism did not imply any superiority over the workman,
or even equality with him.